Three of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. In today’s digital world, all businesses don’t have to be run in a traditional sense within a ‘bricks and mortar’ setting. Much of business is now carried out online via E Commerce. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Take Your Business In An Unexpected Direction.
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Pretty much every small start up nowadays is being established online. There’s a good reason that many small business owners are taking to the realm of E Commerce to sell their products to the consumer market. When it comes down to it, E Commerce is a lot cheaper to set up than a brick and mortar store. You don’t have to worry about forking out for a commercial property or commercial property rent. You can also wave goodbye to commercial energy bills to keep the place up and running. You don’t have to furnish this space or pay for merchandisers to arrange your products in an appealing manner. There’s no pressure to take on security staff or pay for security equipment. Instead, you can simply collaborate with a freelance web designer on the one-off project of creating your website. E Commerce also provides low levels of commitment. By avoiding commercial property, you don’t sign up to rent a space for a given period of time, meaning you can back out of your venture at any point if things get a bit too difficult or if things just really don’t work out – there really won’t be all too much loss involved. So, we would generally recommend taking this approach if you are operating a small business or planning on operating a small business. One thing to bear in mind, however, is that with the ease of E Commerce has come an influx of small businesses establishing themselves. It seems like every Tom, Dick, and Harry wants to try their hand at becoming the next entrepreneur. The market is becoming increasingly saturated and you’re going to have to take bold steps to ensure that your company manages to stand above the rest. This could require a little thinking outside of the box. But how can you achieve this? Well, let’s take a moment to look into the matter further!
The Problem With Saturated Markets
So many small business owners make the mistake of assuming that all companies will have to take some sort of sales in a saturated market. There are so many consumers out there that at least a portion will naturally fall into your path and choose to spend their money with you, right? Well, this isn’t actually the case. When you are operating in a saturated market, you’re bound to face a whole host of problems at some point or another. Saturated markets create stiff competition and the majority will start to pull illogical business moves in order to try to stand out from the crowd – they will significantly reduce the prices of their goods to lure customers towards their company. Sure, this might work. Customers will go where prices are lowest. But by undercutting competition, these small businesses devalue their own goods and significantly reduce their own profit margins. You don’t want to get roped into using the same tactics and devaluing your own goods. However, if you are offering the same thing, you’re going to have to! There is an answer to all of this though. You just need to take your business in an unexpected direction and offer something different! Offer something that nobody else is offering. Even if the difference between your product and other products out there is relatively small, it’s much better than offering the exact same thing as somebody else. Even the slightest difference in your goods could draw people towards you, helping you to make sales and generate more of a profit.
Coming Up with Something Innovative
When you have something that is completely innovative and that hasn’t been seen before, you are going to find swaying buyers your way to be a lot easier. Your product will exist in its own right and people won’t really be able to compare it to other options on the market. But how do you come up with something innovative? Well, we’re afraid that this is purely down to you. You’re going to have to get your thinking cap on! The good news is that there are a few steps that you can take to steer yourself in the right direction.
Identify a Gap in the Market
The first step that you should take on your journey to creating something completely new is to identify a gap in the market. Take a look at what’s already out there and actively seek out a space where you could offer something different.
Offer a Service
Small business owners tend to focus more on products than services. So, why not consider providing a service instead of something tangible that can be packaged up in a box and placed on store shelves? While the market for services still has a lot of competition, there tends to be less of it than in the market for goods. Still try to be innovative. Look at how a service for off highway powertrain has taken off. This might have been something that you would never have thought of yourself, but it takes thinking up something like this to experience success!
Differentiating Your Product
Remember that your offerings don’t have to be an entirely new invention or the most astounding idea ever. They just need to tweak existing designs and items to make them slightly more appealing than current options. If your product is similar to other products on the market, people are likely to opt for whichever is cheapest. However, by differentiating you are giving them alternative choice and they may deem that whatever small addition you are offering is worth paying a little extra for! You may need to really focus on whatever differences you make through advertising and marketing. Really laying emphasis on a slight difference of features can make consumers really focus on it too!
Conducting Market Research
There’s a good chance that you’ve already carried out a little market research at some point in your business journey. This isn’t all too surprising. After all, market research is a business basic and is particularly beneficial for newly emerging businesses. It is a process that allows you to see current market trends, scope out your competition, and to come up with a competitive pricing plan that will encourage customers to shop with you without eating into your profits. However, it is important to remember that you should continue to carry market research out as your brand develops and grows. If you are deciding to take your business in a new direction, you really do need to make sure that there is a market for the innovative idea that you’ve come up with. Sure, making a slight difference to an existing product can help your product to stand out and can make consumers take a second look at what you’re offering. But things could just as easily sway in the opposite direction and a minor change could put customers off and make them step away from your brand. So, conducting fresh market research into any change you make to your products will help you to work out whether your demographic is showing sufficient levels of interest in these changed products in order to buy the final result from you. Take the time to determine how your new and unexpected take will fare in the current marketplace. It really is more than worth the time and effort invested into the process!
Patenting and Copyrighting
Once you’ve come up with something innovative, you need to be prepared for the fact that others out there are going to try to mimic you. This is an inevitability. The good news is that you can hinder their efforts to take your hard work and profit from it themselves. You simply need to protect your intellectual property through patenting or copyrighting. These are legal means of protecting your ideas. A patent ensures that you are the only person who can produce and profit from the product you have created for a set period of time. This gives you the opportunity to become a market leader and generate a significant amount of profit before others can try their hand at selling your idea. Copyrighting is a means of ensuring that other people can’t copy your ideas. If they do, a cease and desist letter can be sent out to them. If they fail to cease and desist, they can face serious legal action!
Constantly Moving Forward
Once you have managed to complete this entire process, avoid being complacent. No matter how innovative your product may initially be and despite your best efforts to copyright and protect your ideas, others are eventually going to catch up. You need to always stay one step ahead of the game in order to ensure that you continue to stand out from the crowd rather than being swallowed up by it.
As you can see, you really do need to take your company in a new and unexpected directions in order to experience success and generate significant profits. Hopefully, the above information will help you to achieve this!
